This might be the first sermon in the history of our church that has been written in the bell tower. I wrote this on November 27 as that wind howled around our steeple. I was warm and cozy due to all the excitement and love you sent up with me. Thank you for your prayers. For your gratitude. For your company.

I had a single lamp and the glow of my laptop to light my room. It was sort of spooky. And these readings were no help. In the last days… The sun darkened. The moon will not give its light. Stars will fall. Heavenly bodies would be shaken.

I used to like my faith like I like my coffee, dark and mysterious. Growing up, I was obsessed with the rapture and the end times. Yet I also would freak myself out. I couldn’t tell if I was following Jesus out of love or fear.

I had this sense that it was more out of fear. What do I have to believe or do to get out of the tribulations and the stars falling and the sun and moon going out?! Just tell me, and I’ll do that. A lot of denominations play that game. The preachers can get you all anxious and fearful. When you get to that state, you end up accepting any answer they give you.

Like that time a salesman came through our town saying we got trouble. Trouble my friends, right here in Medina City. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for POOL! Part of the genius of the musical The Music Man is how Harold Hill plays off the fears of the townsfolk. They have had billiards, a game with no pockets, for years, but somehow pool, with 6 pockets, will lead the youth astray. He plays off their fears and tries to con the whole town.

I see this on the news. We cut our cable years ago. I didn’t like who I was becoming. I am a news and political junkie, but there’s something unhealthy about consuming news 24/7. We were watching last week before I climbed into the tower to see if a local station would run something about the Rev in the Rafters. It was hard to watch after years away. We didn’t notice it when we were watching daily. Stations play off fear. KEEP WATCHING. The wind might blow your house down! Coming up at 11, how your food is killing you. But first, kittens! Not saying that there isn’t good journalism. Kate and I are OU journalism grads. But the method to keep you watching… The method to keep you coming to church by threatening you with eternal torment or that you’ll lose God’s love if you don’t keep in line… Yeah. I don’t know about all of that.

I don’t find a lot of hope in that. I see a lot of Biblical gymnastics to keep the fear up and there’s little focus on God’s love or hope for life on this planet.

It’s like the scene in the movie Annie Hall where the young Alvie is depressed. Why is he depressed? It’s something he read, says his mom. “The universe is expanding,” says Alvie. “If it’s expanding some day it will break apart and that will be the end of everything.”

“What is that your business?!” his mom yells. “He’s stopped doing his homework!”

Alvie replies, “What’s the point?”

What’s the point to life if it’s all going to blow up and we don’t know the time and hour? That’s one reading. It’s one that produces nice little obedient church folk. Fearful. Cowards. Powerless.

Yet there’s a more hopeful reading. Both of Isaiah and of Matthew. We’ll take a running start at it.

Isaiah and Matthew were both written during occupations. Isaiah during the Assyrian threat. That Empire was cruel and was conquering everything in its path and they were closing in on Israel. Yet that’s when this passage of hope is written. It’s not written when everything is rosy. It’s not written when everything is going right. It’s written in a time of great uncertainty. A time of great pressure. Where everything Israel knows might be torn apart. And they were half right. The northern half of the kingdom was wiped out and Jerusalem endured a siege. However, they had this dream. They had this hope to see them through. A time where no one would learn war anymore. War is all they knew. As Hobbes put it, “Life was nasty, brutish, and short.” But they hoped for a time when it wasn’t.

Both Judah (the northern Kingdom) and Jerusalem (the southern kingdom) would walk in the light of the Lord. The nation of Israel was split. Two kings. Two different rulers. Two warring factions who wanted to take their country in radically different directions. I’m sure we can’t relate to that. Yet the hope in a context of religious difference, political division, and mounting pressure from the Assyrians, THAT is the hope.

Jesus, under similar circumstances. The Roman occupation. The religious hypocrisy of selling false hope. Of saying, “Pay your tithe and follow the rules and God will bless you. Stay in your lane and trust us and it will all work out.” All that is ending. Jesus sees it coming. Rome and empires like it will never be satisfied. You can’t negotiate with those who can’t see your humanity. Instead you have to make them see your humanity. Walk the extra mile. Tell the subversive parable. Hang out with those who are outside your lane. Disobey bad rules from a corrupt religious establishment who would rather keep peace at all cost and sweep trouble under the rug: trouble like widows going broke, orphans starving, outcast being ignored, sex abuse scandals covered up. I’m sure we can’t relate to that.

The hope is that that will end, and we will be free. And it happened. The end of the world already happened. The temple came crashing down when the Romans sacked it. And Jesus’ way caught on and despite all our efforts to sell it short or make it dark and mysterious or so other worldly that it is of no earthly good, there are still good folks who believe the message.

There are still good folks who have hope. Hope in dire circumstances. Hope in harsh realities.

Sure, Christ might descend on a cloud. That doesn’t sound like Jesus’ style though. He was born in a manger. Some out of the way place. Don’t just look for Jesus to come again in some dramatic fashion. Check the alleys where kindness is growing. Check the classrooms where peace is plotting. Check the cancer floors where hope is sprouting. Check the soup kitchens where the next great theologian is eating. Hope is out there! Jesus shows up in the unlikeliest of places and in surprising people. In you. Me. Our neighbor. Our enemy. Look for Jesus coming again in those forms. Hope is being born and it is not some false hope of conformity and following the rules. No. This hope is forged! Forged in the fires of adversity and busted dreams of how things should go. This hope is realer than real. I’m not really waiting for Jesus to come on a cloud again. If that happens, then great. But too many years have passed with well-meaning Christians sitting on their hands. Furthermore… let’s do some basic math. Christmas when he was born would be the first coming of Christ. Then we killed him and he’s gone. Then… Easter… which would be the second coming of Christ. Plus we have the Holy Spirit and every time you feel the Spirit move or are inspired… The very word meaning IN-Spirited, Christ comes again. So put your hope within reach. Ground it. Make it realer than real.

I hoped to marry. I did. Not because I saw what a great marriage looked like but because I didn’t. I hoped to be a father. Not because I had a great dad but because I didn’t. I had hoped to pastor a great church. Not because I had one growing up but because I didn’t. I’m still working on that because just when I thought I found one… they made me sleep in the rafters.

Just kidding! That’s something we hoped for! And we did it! And we will continue to hope and dream. I enjoyed my time up in the rafters, got a lot done, talked online to people from all over my life, and even was asleep when Kate came to get me in the morning.

My great hope is to become a church that welcomes, loves and serves. In new ways we haven’t seen in 200 years. With kindness and joy as the engine for everything we do. It is my hope that we become a teaching church as well as a permission-giving church. If you want to try something, let’s gather folks around you and get to work. Let’s try something. Let’s see what your hope looks like because there’s no greater feeling than seeing that your hope is true. There’s nothing greater than turning your dreams into reality.

Yet should you feel like you have no hope left… That your best days are behind you… Pass your hope on. That’s what we’ve been doing to our sacred stories all the while. At the time where less than 10% could read and write, we wrote these hopes down. So that people facing war and division would hope for peace. That people feeling oppressed would hope for freedom. That people whose faith had betrayed them would hope to meet the living God. Take hope and pass it on! In anyway you can. For now is the time for dreaming. Now is the time for hoping. Now is the time to find Christ in all the out-of-the-way places he is still being born today again and again. Amen.